Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged “immodest.”

Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is “dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women,” according to its website.

Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release distributed Wednesday on the filling of “vacancies in subsidiary bodies,” was the stark announcement: Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was “elected by acclamation,” meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states — including the United States.

No state that implements sharia law should be anywhere near anything resembling a human rights body, especially one concerned with women. Iran is one of the worst. Women are brutally repressed in Iran: they face death by stoning; their political and legal rights are severely restricted; they face rape in prison by government officials; and they are even gunned down in the streets.

And almost as appalling is that the United States didn’t speak out against this travesty. Yet another glorious moment in the history of Smart Power.

The U.S. couldn’t muster a word of opposition — not even call for a vote. That would be because . . . why? Because our policy is not to confront and challenge the brutal regime for which rape and discrimination are institutionalized policies. No, rather, we are in the business of trying to ingratiate ourselves, and making the U.S. as inoffensive as possible to the world’s thugocracies.

We’re not, we’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.

Is there any clearer expression of the statism at the heart of this administration? Not only do Obama and the (Social) Democrats claim the power and the requisite wisdom to regulate broad swathes of the economy, but the President himself claims to know better than you when you’ve earned enough money, beyond which, we assume, one enters the realm of “unfair.”

It also shows (again) that he just doesn’t “get” capitalism or market economies. The promise of possibly earning more money is what encourages people to start a business, hire more people (Remember jobs, Mr. President?), and take risks. That incentive system, coupled with a relative lack of government interference, is why our economy has been phenomenally successful. By saying “you’ve made enough,” you take away any incentive for people to work harder. Why should I or anyone risk capital in an investment, or take a job that eats up most of my time, if you are going to tell us we can only make so much from it? What’s next, wage and price controls a la Diocletian and Nixon?

And the arrogance! That a man who has never worked in private business, whose whole adult life has been in academics, non-profit, and government work should think that he knows how much a businessman or an investor should make in return for their effort and risk? A man who knows next to nothing about economics? How is this even in Washington’s purview?